This is my weapon......this is my.............well, it USED to be....

an actual penile gun shot photo -- not this one though

From TPM:

Georgia Man Later Discovers He Shot Himself In Penis While Holstering Gun

A Macon, Ga. man accidentally shot himself in the penis on Thursday, according to WMAZ Channel 13.
The man was trying to holster his .45 caliber gun while parked in a gas station parking lot when it accidentally discharged.

He then when to a friend's house, where he discovered he "shot himself in the penis and that the bullet exited out of his buttocks," according to WMAZ.

Just sayin' --- when I see some jerk out parading around with his fetish object gun, I think of this guy and all those like him who are not safe, who are not secure gun carriers, and who lack both physical dexterity and most of all, good judgement sufficient safely to be armed with a lethal weapon for no good reason. Just because they wannah is not a sufficiently good reason

Guess it isn't so inanimate after all.

Seriously, they aren't dangerous? You mind if I point a loaded one at you?

You do?

Anyway, in the usual "I left my gun alone and..." situation, someone decided to do a little home gunsmithing and put on a new trigger for his Rebel Arms AR-15, when he fell asleep at the computer with the gun on his lap after installing it on the gun. Next thing, he woke up when the rifle discharged.

The pearl:

"he did not realize the gun was loaded"

Yes, indeedy.

His neighbours told police they were awoken by a loud noise and saw a hole in the bedroom wall that is adjacent to the shooter's apartment.  They also reported damage to the ceiling and another hole above the light switch on the opposite wall, records indicate. Two children, ages 1 and 2, were sleeping in the neighbours' apartment.  Not to mention, the bullet entered the bedroom above the mattress where the neighbours were sleeping, according to records.

Shooter was charged with aggravated assault, discharge of a firearm into an occupied structure and recklessly endangering another person. He was released on $50,000 unsecured bail.


I feel so safe knowing you have guns:  especially since incidents like this are far more common than DGUs.

See also:

• Wind Gap man accidentally fires gun after falling asleep while watching YouTube, police say

Bill Maher on the Tea Partiers misconception of the founding fathers.

OK, Bill Maher isn't a super scholar, but he does have it right here.   The founders were not "American Idiots".  In fact, from what I know about them, they would find someone like Sarah Plain to be an embarrassment.

Cenk on John McCain and the Other War Hawks

Gun Range Suicide with a Rented Gun in Vacaville CA

Local news reports

Approximately 30 minutes before police were called, the man reportedly came to the businesswhere he rented a .45-caliber handgun. According to Lydon, the man provided the employee with identification in order to use the gun. He shot an unknown number of rounds before ultimately turning the gun on himself.

When he failed to return from the shooting range, employees tried to contact him through the businesses overhead paging system but received no response, Lydon said.

The employees then went down to the range where they opened the closed doors and found the man.

Based on the report of the injury relayed to police, officers were able to respond with a medic, who determined that the man had succumbed to his injury.

A green sign was place on the door leading down to the range, stating that it was closed for the day.

Where Gun Stores Outnumber Museums and Libraries

from ssgmarkcr

I came across this interesting article that also has, what I think is a pretty cool interactive map.  My only complaint is that the map is a bit small.  But I discovered that my home, which is in Morrison County MN comes out with slight lead in gun dealers.  It would have been more fair to include ranges too, but it would have been a challenge considering it could be quite a job to find the data.

    I don't really have anything deep or contemplative to say about this article other than its an interesting way to look at things.  Thought I'd offer it up to the masses here to share.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/06/17/where-gun-stores-outnumber-museums-and-libraries/

Judge Richard Posner on Scalia's dismissal of the first clause in the Heller decision

It's nice when the leading CONSERVATIVE jurist backs up my opinion.

Similarly, the book’s defense of the Heller decision fails to mention that most professional historians reject the historical analysis in Scalia’s opinion. Reading Law quotes approvingly Joseph Story’s analysis of preambles—“the preamble of a statute is a key to open the mind of the makers, as to the mischiefs, which are to be remedied, and the objects, which are to be accomplished by the provisions of the statute”—but fails to apply the analysis to the preamble of the Second Amendment, which reads: “A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State.” The preamble implies that the Second Amendment (which creates a right “to keep and bear arms”) is not about personal self-defense, but about forbidding the federal government to disarm state militias. Contra Story, Justice Scalia treated the preamble dismissively in his opinion in Heller.

Actually, the proeme should act as a built in sunset clause.  It states the purpose for which the law was written, and once that purpose is no longer necessary: neither is the law.

In other words, those who would ask that we ignore it are tacitly admitting that the Second Amendment has no place in 21st Century America.

And if we are going to get into it, Aymette v State, 2 Humphreys 154 (Tenn. 1840), also contradicts what Scalia claims, which is " Those who believe that the Second Amendment preserves only a militia-centered right place great reliance on the Tennessee Supreme Court’s 1840 decision in Aymette v. State, 21 Tenn. 154. The case does not stand for that broad proposition; in fact, the case does not mention the word “militia” at all, except in its quoting of the Second Amendment . Aymette held that the state constitutional guarantee of the right to “bear” arms did not prohibit the banning of concealed weapons.":

 We think there is a manifest distinction.  In the nature of things, if they were not allowed to bear arms openly, they could not bear them in their defence of the state at all.  To bear arms in defence of the state is to employ them in war, as arms are usually employed by civilized nations.  The arms, consisting of swords, muskets, rifles, etc., must necessarily be borne openly; so that a prohibition to bear them openly would be a denial of the right altogether.  And, as in their constitution the right to bear arms in defence of themselves is coupled with the right to bear them in defence of the state, we must understand the expressions as meaning the same thing, and as relating to public, and not private, to the common, and not the individual, defence...

 ...To make this view of the case still more clear, we may remark that the phrase, "bear arms," is used in the Kentucky constitution as well as in our own, and implies, as has already been suggested, their military use. The 28th section of our bill of rights provides "that no citizen of this state shall be compelled to bear arms provided he will pay in equivalent, to be ascertained by law." Here we know that the phrase has a military sense, and no other; and we must infer that it is used in the same sense in the 26th section, which secures to the citizen the right to bear arms.  A man in the pursuit of deer, elk, and buffaloes might carry his rifle every day for forty years, and yet it would never be said of him that he had borne arms; much less could it be said that a private citizen bears arms because he has a dirk or pistol concealed under his clothes, or a spear in a cane.  So that, with deference, we think the argument of the court in the case referred to, even upon the question it has debated, is defective and inconclusive.

If the authorities are not helpful to his argument, it is because they contradict that argument.

Or did Scalia not bother actually reading Aymette and hope that no one else would and call him on it?

As is the case with most "pro-gun" arguments, Scalia's opinion in the Heller case does not withstand close scrutiny.